


from prayers to broken stone

by smallredboy



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Biblical Scripture References (Abrahamic Religions), Catholicism, Episode: s01e13 Cursed, Estrangement, Family Issues, Gay Robert Chase, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Minor Robert Chase/Greg House, Time Skips, Young Robert Chase, religious homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21774694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/smallredboy
Summary: Melbourne, Australia, 1993.Robert is fourteen years old, and his church's priest breaks the vow of secrecy for his confession.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39
Collections: Allbingo, Genprompt Bingo Round 17, Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 10





	from prayers to broken stone

**Author's Note:**

> **allbingo's people-watching fest** : God  
>  **hurt/comfort bingo** : family + ostracized from society  
>  **gen prompt bingo** : relative values: families
> 
> enjoy!

One of his few reprieves about the situation is that priests do not share the contents of confessions.

Robert sighs as he goes into the confession booth. It's a small thing, almost a box, asphyxiating him from the get-go. He gets down on his knees. He's fourteen, the rite of confession a well-learned act, but this time it's not for a reason he feels is trivial, as it used to be back when he was younger.

No, this is very much the opposite of trivial.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," he starts. 

"Blessed be the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," he says easily. "What is the nature of your sin?" he asks from the other side of the booth, through the screen, not quite visible.

He swallows and stares down at the floor; the corners of his side are gathering up dust. He sucks in a breath, unsure how to start this. How to explain, how to excuse himself. God will not accept any excuses, though, if he does fall prey to his desires. God will not listen to him. Fire and brimstone— that's what he'll get if he is weak. And he knows he's weak.

"I keep thinking about…" He bites his lip. "About… lying with other men."

"You keep thinking about committing the crime of sodomy?" the priest asks.

He swallows thickly. "Yes, Father."

"Hm. Three Lord's Prayers, two Hail Mary's, and an act of contrition."

There's something different about his tone, how it shifts with thinly veiled disgust. The disgust of a member of their congregation being into men, this young boy corrupted and warped into something unholy.

"Of course, Father," he says, folding his hands together. "Our Father, who art in Heaven…"

* * *

"The priest came and talked to me after mass," his dad tells him a week later.

Robert goes stiff and picks at his food. "He did?"

"Yes."

"What did you two talk about?" his mum asks, smiling at her husband, not even sparing her child a glance.

"We'll talk about it once we're done with dinner," he says, waving a hand off, like it's no big deal. "You know, bellies full and everything. Right, Robbie?"

He clenches his jaw. He has a  _ very _ bad feeling about this conversation, but he might be being paranoid right now. He doesn't feel like he is, but he might be. He has to not let it get to him, to control the need to cry out and escape his house. He can't have his parents know, oh no, he cannot have them know.

He finishes his food, even as nausea floods him as soon as he's done. He wants to throw up.

They go to the living room. The coffee table has empty bottles littered all over it. Neither of his parents say anything about that— it's just a part of life now.

"The priest told me," his dad starts, eyes dark with something that makes his guts stir even more,"about your confession last week."

"I'm sorry, dad," he chokes out immediately.

Rowan shakes his head a little, dismissing him, before turning to his wife. "The priest told me that our son— that our son was having  _ thoughts _ ."

"Thoughts— thoughts about what?"

"About other boys. About men."

His mum's face screws up in distaste, and she turns around to look at Robert, look at him with such a disgust it makes him shrink in on his place, feet glued to the hard wooden floor.

"Mum—" he starts.

"I need a drink," she interrupts him. She doesn't  _ care _ . He's not sure if she's ever cared, with how she drowns herself in alcohol, but more so now that she knows what he is. "You deal with him, Rowan, be a dear."

He pulls her into a kiss for a brief moment, before nodding. She goes to the kitchen; Robert can hear the fridge being opened, a beer or two being taken out. He shudders and looks down at his own shoes, unable to breathe, unable to think as he waits for Rowan to say anything.

"Why have you strayed from God's path, Robert?" he asks. "What man did this to you?"

His face twists. He clenches his fists, his head light with pain. "No man did anything to me."

"You're only fourteen," he says, shaking his head. "You can love a girl still, Robbie. You can find a woman who you'll like. You're not that far gone."

"Dad," he chokes out. "I'm sorry. I know."

His dad doesn't come close, doesn't step anywhere near him. He never has, but right now it's more rotten. More putrid. More, I do not want to come close my son.

"I know you can get out from it," he says. "I know you don't have to stray from God's path, Robbie. You can find your way back to Him."

He nods, looking up at him desperately. "I want to. I'll find my way back to the Lord, dad. I promise you I will."

"Good," he says, curtly.

* * *

It may be his paranoia, but everyone stares at him throughout mass. He listens to the First Reading, and the priest chooses precisely  _ that _ one part of Leviticus. He looks at him, not nearly hard enough for it to be obvious, but his glance scorches his skin clean.

His dad puts a respectable distance between himself and his son. 

He spends as much time as he can throwing himself into reading the Bible, looking for verses that will provide comfort, for verses that will not make his guts twist with nausea. He feels sick to his stomach always— he doesn't look at his classmates if he can help it. He'll go insane if he has to go to confession again.

He's living drowning in shame. He tries to look at the girls in his class and feel something, but he always comes up empty. He doesn't want to come up empty— God, he wants to want them so bad it hurts.

"I'm sorry," he tells the priest desperately. "Please fix me.  _ Please _ just fix me. I don't want to be this."

But he has no answers, only Bible verses.

* * *

It only takes a few looks for Rowan to be able to tell.

Maybe that's the worst part, in Chase's opinion. That he didn't have to watch him extensively during those days where he was at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, just with the prospect of making him miserable. He could just  _ see _ him, see how he interacted with his boss, and he knew. He immediately knew.

"You strayed from His path once again," Rowan accuses while they're in the street, waiting for his taxi. His eyes are cold steel, always on him, watching his reaction.

Does he expect him to act like he's fourteen again? Cower in shame and in fear, in self-hatred?

No fucking way.

"I dropped out of seminary," he replies. There's a few feet in between them. "I've already established that pattern."

"Lusting over men is worse than dropping out of seminary."

He scoffs. "Don't judge anyone by your human limitations. Only God's judgments are flawless. John, chapter eight, verses fifteen and sixteen."

"Do you only look at the parts of the Bible that comfort you, Robert?" he asks. "The Bible condemns people like you. God hates people like you."

"Shouldn't you just say He hates me?"

Rowan scrunches up his nose. "I do not think I want to leave in that note. He will judge you. You should repent."

Rowan says every word with such an icy politeness, such an air of deescalation that makes him insane. He wants to scream, he wants to punch him, he wants to show that anger he pushed down, down, down until he couldn't feel it anymore. 

"God loves me," he says.

Rowan nods, curtly, like he's shutting him up. But he gives him the last word before the taxi comes. He helps the man put his suitcase in the trunk, and then turns back to his son.

"God hates you," he concedes. "But He loves you even more."

Chase watches, his stomach in knots, as the taxi with his father in it drives away from him.


End file.
